Monday, April 23, 2012

Snow Canyon

Our first camping trip in 2012 was to Snow Canyon, near
St. George.We have a great friend,
Jennifer Mortensen, who is so good about planning these neighborhood camping
trips each April.The past two years
we’ve gone to Goblin Valley, which we LOVE.This year, she decided to shake things up a little and we headed further
south to Snow Canyon, near St. George.Though
for us, not as fun as Goblin, it was a great place to visit and a lot of fun to
go someplace new.We had a really good
time.

Oh, I guess I should preface things by saying that we
almost didn’t make it on this trip.We’ve
been having car problems with the Saturn
forever, and Kev finally determined that though it still runs, there’s no way
we can take it 600 miles to St. George and back.I was kind of OK with that.I was working and the thought of planning and
prepping for a camping trip seemed exhausting.Taking the burb wasn’t even an option.We don’t take it, or the trailer, long distances like that very
often.It costs way too much in
gas.At the last minute, our friends
Kaydee and Darren Phillips insisted that we take their car and come on the trip.I was still opposed, but then they went out
and got the oil changed and a tune-up, ready for us to go, and I felt roped
in.Plus, Kev really wanted to go, so we
did.It was incredibly generous of them
and in the end we’re glad we were able to go.It spoiled us though.Kaydee has
a really nice, much newer car than ours.We might as well have been in a limo, as comfortable as the drive was.

So, I got us ready, Kev took off early on Friday and the
girls and I left as soon as school was overWe picked up Kevin at his office in Draper and off we went!The
drive was uneventful, and after some words between Jen and I over which tent
spot we should take (she’s the sensible one and I’m the sass in our
relationship ; ), we got settled and made dinner.Since we were camping in a tent, rather than
our beloved camper, we kept things very simple.Oatmeal for breakfast, hot dogs for dinner, that kind of thing.It’s different, but still fun.I like the girls to be able to experience
both kind of camping.

Six different families came on this trip besides us – the Mortensens, Phillips, Richards, Hattaways,
Kesslers and the Moss family.We
generally camp together, but are usually on our own for activities.Oh, we’ll do some things together, a hike or
two, but generally we do our own thing.

On Saturday morning, we all got up and hiked the Lava
Flow Overlook Trail.I think the trail
is several miles long, but I don’t know if anyone actually hiked the whole
thing.We were mostly interested in
seeing the Lava Tubes.The trail starts
out pretty flat with traditional desert brush, but then patches of volcanic
rock begins to appear.Keep moving and
you’ll see caved in areas.Some of these open into lava tubes. If you have a
flashlight with you, you can walk down into the tubes and explore
underground.We hiked to a couple of
different ones.It was a lot of fun, and
a little freaky too.

After lunch our family decided to do some
Geocaching, which is a family favorite.There was one within about a mile from camp, so we decided to walk.All fine and good, but I wasn’t really
thinking and we didn’t take water.This
is Southern Utah and it was dry and blooming hot!We had fun finding the geocache, but were so
hot and thirsty by the time we got back. Holy cow!

Kaydee’s parents have a condo in St. George
and while they were camping with the group, they also went back and forth to
the condo a few times.On Saturday
afternoon they invited us in to swim at the condo pool and we went.Straight from there we grabbed dinner out and
stopped to do some rapelling off Dixie Rock.We met Darren, Jennifer and her daughter Millie there.It was just a short rapell.I did it, Kev did, Jen, then Millie.Then we tried to get Brinkley and Lily to
go.It was a scary rock because it
wasn’t a straight drop, it kind of curved under, which was harder.Lily wouldn’t go, but Brinkley decided she
would.She started getting really
stressed though, almost immediately.Kev
was with her at the top, and Darren was spotting at the bottom.It took like 15 minutes to talk her
over.Brinkley was crying, and Kev kept
telling her she didn’t have to go, but she kept saying, “I want to!” tears
flowing the whole time.It was
awesome!She finally did it though.

Sunday we packed up and our family decided we
wanted to geocache more before we headed home.We ended up hitting 9 more in the canyon and right outside the
canyon.It was so fun!We found everyone that we looked for.Success for The Cache Hounds (our geocaching
family name!).We finally left St.
George in the late afternoon, and didn’t make it home until late evening, but
we had a great trip thanks to good friends!